Critic Reviews

The sophomore season seems to be building steadily toward another chaotic and awful reckoning with Leanne, and this is one nightmare I'm in no rush to escape.

Servant has always been a malevolent beast of a TV show, its humor stinging and its horror perplexing, and its formal sharpness hasn’t dimmed in this fourth go-round. ... Even if their saga doesn’t wrap up in wholly satisfying fashion, Basgallop and Shyamalan cast an eerie spell that makes the waiting, and guessing, a pleasure unto itself. ... Regardless of its ultimate destination, its harrowing and baffling journey has been more than worth it.

Yes, you can expect (but probably won’t be able to predict) some wonderfully nasty plot twists along the way. “Servant” is a deliberately (sometimes maddeningly) paced series of 10 episodes, each roughly 30 minutes in length.

After watching all 10 episodes, it’s hard to imagine the mystery sustaining more than two seasons or so. But it’s far too early to quibble. Right now, Servant is delivering the kind of giddy thrills you want from horror: Things are going from bad to worse for the Turner family, and I can’t help but enjoy it.

Seven episodes in, “Servant” has found a way to not only up its game on its second outing, but also reward investment into the show’s middling first year.

If the remaining episodes are as good as these first three, it will be the audience who can truly count themselves the winners. A disquieting and dynamic portrait of one family’s descent, the final season of Servant is one that promises to reward those who have kept the faith.

It’s a show about damaged people who unload their trauma on one another, and the supernatural forces that will either tear them apart or hold them together. Somehow, either possibility feels equally likely, and potentially equally satisfying. That’s a hard trick to pull off, and it feels like “Servant” is a show that will be easier to appreciate once it can be viewed in its entirety. Until then, expect the unexpected.

Servant is an unfocused yet ultimately creepy good time with enough character and charm to keep its hazy nightmare from lulling you to sleep.

Servant is essentially a Black Mirror installment stretched into ten half-hour parts. It is American Horror Story, minus that franchise’s capacity to wink at itself and its own reliance on tropes. And yet as silly as the show gets, I still wanted to get to the bottom of what’s going on.

Few shows are as skilled at sorting through the intricate, hypocritical, and quiet forms of hurt better than this thriller. But just because Servant has gotten more introspective this go round doesn’t mean the chilling drama has lost its edge.